Incoming Jets Animate Atlanta Airport’s Epic Data-Driven Sculpture

In collaboration with designer Nik Hafermaas and programmer Jamie Barlow, Goods' latest piece, airFIELD, installed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, runs flight data through an app that spits out "on" or "off" signals to Frisbee-sized discs of liquid crystal suspended from the ceiling. Each time a jet takes off or lands, passengers are treated to a cascade of overhead lights synced to the flight's trajectory.

"We're not working with major data sets," Goods says. "It's basically: Have the planes landed? Have they taken off? And how far have they gone?' But it's interesting information and we're trying to show it in a poetic fashion. If you're sitting there waiting for two hours for your flight to Switzerland, then it gives you a sense of the heartbeat of the airport."

Citing an MIT experiment that used solar wind activity to spin pinwheels, Goods says, "I liked the idea of taking arcane, weird data and making it into something physical. That kind of ambient data I think is really interesting because there's only so much you can see on a screen. I like the idea of experiencing data as something that's all-encompassing. How can you listen to data? How can you sense the physicality of data?"

Check out gallery for images, video and text deconstructing airFLIGHT, eCLOUD and other data-driven projects.

Images courtesy Dan Goods except where noted

Above: Arrivals and Departures Activate Atlanta Airport's airFIELD

Produced by UEBERSEE, the installation runs data provided by FlightAware tracking service through Dan Massey's custom C++ program. The application transmits electrical charges that instructs each single-pixel disc to become either opaque or translucent. "We were thinking about fluid dynamics, like grass blowing in the wind, and it had to work in three dimensions. It took a while to get the piece to feel like the airplane has just flown over your head, because that's what we wanted. We wanted it to feel as if you were standing at the end of the runway and these flights are flying over you and you're physically seeing the fluid dynamics of the aircraft as they go by."

Night Flight

This composite photograph documents about 15 nighttime flights as represented by the trail of lights. Goods says, "By setting the camera at a long exposure and taking photographs of all these flights at night, we could look at the way airplanes land and take off. Like birds, they both have this swooping feel to them."

Like a Bird in Flight

Nik Hafermaas, Graphic Design Department Chair at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, used the jet trajectory photographs as the foundation for this concept art. Goods says, "Nik drew the sketch to lay out this idea where you marry this idea of swooping up and swooping down. One shape represents the taking off, the other shape represents the landing. If you put them together, from the side, it looks like a bird in flight. That was serendipitous but it brought an interesting aspect to the sculpture."

A Public Hanging

In order to function, airFIELD relies on 1,500 10-inch discs connected to 3,000 wires and 81 circuit boards. Finding a sleek form for all that hardware posed a major challenge, Goods says. "We wanted airFIELD to be ethereal, as if it were hanging in the sky. That was really difficult because we had thousands of pieces of plastic to hang from the ceiling and we didn't want to show all this stuff hanging up there."

To streamline the infrastructure, Goods explains, "The wires come through this meshed ceiling and get enfolded by V-shaped pieces of aluminum. Inside these V channels are the wire and circuit board and all the crap we don't want anyone to see."

Produced by UBERSEE, the sculpture features polycarbonate tiles of liquid crystal, made from the same material used on computer screens. Goods explains, "The tile's normal state is opaque but when a little electricity is added, it goes transparent. Through the use of custom software and circuitry, we were able to simulate the look and behavior of weather patterns from around the world."

Passengers' POV

Seen from the airline traveler's perspective, eCLOUD hovers from San Jose Airport's ceiling.

Algorithms in Action

Aaron Koblin, who leads the Data Arts Team at Google's Creative Lab, coded the software parameters that drive eCLOUD's behavior. Goods explains, "Aaron wrote an algorithm that looks at about 100 different cities and organizes the information to find the top 20 most interesting weather conditions in the world, then rearranges it so you'll get rain, then cloudy, then clear weather for example. We basically want to get the most contrast between 'shows.'"

Flight Pattern Takes Off

eCLOUDS co-creator Aaron Koblin anticipated airFIELD with his more modestly scaled Flight Patterns piece. The animation is based on 24 hours' worth of airplane tracking data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration. Koblin, who earned an MFA from UCLA's Design: Media Arts program, interpolated values based on locations of flight routes to create an animation showing where each plane was flying.

Image courtesy Aaron Koblin

Hidden Light, Exposed Planets

Goods designed Hidden Light to illustrate the difficulty of seeing dim planets. "It's extremely difficult to discover Earth-like planets around other stars because stars are billions of times bigger and brighter than planets," Goods says. "For Hidden Light, I projected a movie onto a large wall, and at the same time projected a brighter pixelated movie reminiscent of the sun, which is so bright it washes out the movie from the other projector. As soon as you walk in front of the light, the person's shadow hits the screen and reveals the video inside their shadow. The more people inside, the more of the video they can see."

"Any space geek drools at aerogel," says Goods. The ultra-light substance, made of 99.8 percent air, boasts remarkable protective qualities. "A one-inch thick piece would protect your hand from a blow torch," Goods notes. "It's been used to catch dust from a comet and insulate the rovers on Mars. But its effect on light is what I find stunning."

Displayed at Technorama Museum in Switzerland, Solid Smoke features thin wafers of aerogel that change color when a visitor waves his or her fingers through a nearby slot.

China, Say Hello to Kansas: The Wishing Well

SIAS University, an international university in Henan Province, China, has a sister college in Kansas called Fort Hays State University. Approached by SIAS to figure out a piece that would illustrate the connection between the two schools, Goods worked with JLP colleague David Delgado to design The Wishing Well, pictured as concept art above. When completed in about two years, the Well will be embedded with an LCD screen at the base and a hidden video web camera, enabling visitors on opposite sides of the globe to hobnob virtually. Goods says, "This will allow us to 'dig a hole to China,' like our mothers always said we could do when digging in the yard."